Training
by LizBee
Summary: Ikki's been keeping secrets, but now she has a favour to ask of Jinora.


**Training**

by LizBee

* * *

Written for the 2013 White Lotus Lunar New Year Exchange.

* * *

"Do you have classes the day after tomorrow?"

Without looking up from her book, Jinora said, "Do you ever knock?"

"I'm serious!" Ikki threw herself onto Jinora's bed. "Do you have classes? Say between ten and two? It's really, _really_ important."

"Yes," said Jinora. "But why?"

"No reason!" Ikki sprang from the bed and across the room to the door. The ensuing breeze set Jinora's papers fluttering. "If Dad asks, you're giving me a tour of the university, okay?"

"I am? Where will you be? What's so important?" Jinora closed her book and stood up. "Ikki, come back! Ikki!"

* * *

Swimming costume under her clothes and glider in her hand, Ikki was almost out the door and away when her mother said, "Are you going swimming, Ikki? You should take your brothers as well."

"Mo-oooooom!"

"Yes?"

Ikki took a deep breath. She hated to have to play this card, but it wasn't as if she had a choice.

"Mom," she repeated, "I'm going to the City Pool. I can't take Meelo and Rohan! There will be _boys_ there!"

Pema raised her eyebrows.

"Boys?" she said.

"You know? Guys my age, who don't have to live on an island and shave all their hair off just because they came up with a really neat airbending trick?"

"Ah," said Pema, "_boys_."

"Mm."

"Who won't be impressed by what a good sister you are"

"It's bad enough I'm still basically bald."

Finally, her mother laughed.

"I'm teasing, Ikki. You can go to the pool now, if you promise you'll take Meelo and Rohan to the beach tomorrow."

"Yes! Thank you!" She felt bad for lying, but at least her relief was real. She put a puff of air into her twirl.

* * *

She didn't actually mind losing her hair. Not as much as Jinora, who had told everyone she wouldn't care if she had to be bald forever, but spent the day after her head was first shaved avoiding mirrors and looking a bit stunned.

For one thing, hair slowed her down.

"Four minutes, forty-two seconds. Sure you weren't airbending?"

"I wasn't, I promise!"

"I know," said Korra, putting the stopwatch down with a grin. "I would have felt it."

"Did I really make it?"

"One hundred per cent," said Korra. "You should be proud."

"I am," said Ikki, "but then I worry that I'll fail the written test, or I'll trip over my own foot, and I'll have wasted time being proud for no reason. And _then_ I think, well, I've done all this hard work, and that's an achievement by itself, and I shouldn't waste this time worrying about something that might not even happen!"

"Wow."

"I'm trying to live in the moment."

"Good luck with that."

* * *

"Are you sure you want to do this?"

Ikki straightened her spine.

"Yes," she said.

"You could be hurt."

"I'm not scared of anything," said Ikki. This was a lie, but it sounded good. To her, at least. Mako was still hesitating.

"Come on," said Korra. "Ikki's the same age we were when we fought the Equalists."

"Yeah," said Mako, "I don't think that makes it okay."

That was fair. Korra and her friends had seemed completely grown up back then, but now she was seventeen, and some days she felt like a kid. And then she worried that she was making a mistake after all, and everything would go wrong, and her family and friends would all be ashamed of her.

_That_ was what she was afraid of.

Then Korra took her stance and sent a wall of rock and metal Ikki's way, and Mako obviously gave up arguing, because a burst of flame followed, and Ikki was too busy defending herself to think about anything else.

* * *

"I need your help."

"I need you to seriously think about knocking," said Jinora, but she actually put her book down. "Is this about tomorrow? Because I don't want to lie for you, especially if I don't even-" She stopped, sniffing. "Is that smoke?"

"Yes." Ikki sank onto Jinora's bed.

"Are you … hanging around with a firebender?" Jinora's eyes widened. "Do you have a secret boyfriend? Is that why you want me to cover for you?"

"No! I mean, that's strictly the lie of last resort."

"Huh?"

"It was Mako. He was helping me train."

Jinora looked blank.

"I'm joining the police force," said Ikki.

"Oh."

"I have the fitness tests tomorrow. If I pass those, I'll get to take the written exams."

"Are you allowed to bend? Tomorrow, I mean."

"Only in the sparring at the end. And I only get to do that if I make it through the other tests."

"Wow." Jinora moved her desk chair over to the side of her bed and sat down again, putting her feet up beside Ikki's head.

"Gross."

"You're making my bed stink."

"...I guess that's fair."

"Why are you being so secretive?" Jinora asked.

Ikki rolled over onto her stomach and buried her face in her hands.

"Ikki?"

"Dad."

"Huh?"

"I said Dad."

"I heard you. I just don't understand. I mean, he used to go out with Lin, and she's in the police. He really respects them."

"It's different for her."

"Yes. I guess so."

Jinora's voice was distant. She was probably wondering how you could be a police officer and still uphold Air Nomad traditions. Ikki had been asking herself the same thing for months, and she hadn't come up with any good answers.

"But this is all I want to be," she said.

"I understand," said Jinora. And even though she'd always been the good daughter, who studied and obeyed and never, ever interrupted senior Acolytes with impertinent questions, Ikki believed her.

"I thought, I'll just not tell anyone until I get in. So if I fail, Mom and Dad don't have to know."

"That's … actually kind of sensible," said Jinora. "I think."

"Thanks!"

"Wait. Does Chief Beifong know you're doing this?"

"Who do you think gave me this?" From her pocket, Ikki produced a worn, battered copy of _The Laws and Ordinances of Republic City._

"You've got nothing to worry about," said Jinora. "If you get in, Dad and Lin will just have another one of their arguments. Bit of wind, an earthquake, no big deal."

"That's what Korra said."

"So what you do you need me for? Other than covering for you tomorrow?"

Ikki held out the book.

"I hate memorising stuff," she said. "Drill me?"

Jinora smiled.

"Sure," she said.

* * *

_end_


End file.
